Offshoring and the onshore composition of tasks and skills

We analyze the relationship between offshoring and the onshore workforce composition in German multinational enterprises (MNEs), using plant data that allow us to discern tasks, occupations, and workforce skills. Offshoring is associated with a statistically significant shift towards more non-routine and more interactive tasks, and with a shift towards highly educated workers. The shift towards highly educated workers is in excess of what is implied by changes in either the task or the occupational composition. Offshoring to low-income countries—with the exception of Central and Eastern European countries—is associated with stronger onshore responses. We find offshoring to predict between 10 and 15 percent of observed changes in wage-bill shares of highly educated workers and measures of non-routine and interactive tasks

Generating citizen trust in e-government using a trust verification agent: A research note

Generating Citizen Trust in e-Government using a Trust Verification AgentThis is an eGISE network paper. It is motivated by a concern about the extent to which trust issues inhibit a citizen’s take-up of online public sector services or engagement with public decision and policy making. A citizen’s decision to use online systems is influenced by their willingness to trust the environment and agency involved. This project addresses one aspect of individual “trust” decisions by providing support for citizens trying to evaluate the implications of the security infrastructure provided by the agency. Based on studies of the way both groups (citizens and agencies) express their concerns and concepts in the security area, the project will develop a software tool – a trust verification agent (TVA) - that can take an agency’s security statements (or security audit) and infer how effectively this meets the security concerns of a particular citizen. This will enable citizens to state their concerns and obtain an evaluation of the agency’s provision in appropriate “citizen friendly” language. Further, by employing rule-based expert systems techniques the TVA will also be able to explain its evaluation.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK (grant GR/T27020/01

Generating citizen trust in e-government using a trust verification agent: A research note

Generating Citizen Trust in e-Government using a Trust Verification AgentThis is an eGISE network paper. It is motivated by a concern about the extent to which trust issues inhibit a citizen’s take-up of online public sector services or engagement with public decision and policy making. A citizen’s decision to use online systems is influenced by their willingness to trust the environment and agency involved. This project addresses one aspect of individual “trust” decisions by providing support for citizens trying to evaluate the implications of the security infrastructure provided by the agency. Based on studies of the way both groups (citizens and agencies) express their concerns and concepts in the security area, the project will develop a software tool – a trust verification agent (TVA) - that can take an agency’s security statements (or security audit) and infer how effectively this meets the security concerns of a particular citizen. This will enable citizens to state their concerns and obtain an evaluation of the agency’s provision in appropriate “citizen friendly” language. Further, by employing rule-based expert systems techniques the TVA will also be able to explain its evaluation.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council-UK (grant GR/T27020/01

Does the Internet Kill the Distance? Evidence From Navigation, E-Commerce, and E-Banking.

By diminishing the cost of performing isolated economic activities in isolated areas, information technology might serve as a substitute for urban agglomeration. This paper assesses this hypothesis by using Italian household level data on internet navigation, e-commerce, and e-banking. Empirically, I find no support for the argument that the internet reduces the role of distance. My results suggest that: (1) Internet navigation is more frequent for urban consumers than their non-urban counterparts. (2) The use of e-commerce is basically not affected by the size of the city where the household lives. Remote consumers are discouraged by the fact that they cannot see the goods before buying them. Leisure activities and cultural items are the only goods and services for which e-commerce is used more intensively in isolated areas. (3) E-banking bears no relationship with city size. In choosing a bank, non-urban customers evaluate personal acquaintances as an important factor more intensively than urban clients. This also depends on the fact that banking account holders in remote areas are more frequently supplied with a loan by their bank.

Collective Action and Post-Communist Enterprise: The Economic Logic of Russia’s Business Associations

Drawing on a unique set of surveys, this article explores the question of whether Russia’s post-communist business associations are generally antithetical to or supportive of the broad objectives of economic restructuring. Contrary to the most widely cited analysis as to the purposes of collective action in the business community, the survey evidence demonstrates that association members have embraced market-adapting behaviors at greater rates than nonmembers. The responses of both firms and associations, moreover, suggest that the associations themselves may, at least in part, be directly responsible. These findings point to the conclusion that in contemporary Russia the net returns to collective action in support of market development are high relative to those for purposes that are less benign.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40180/3/wp794.pd

The Social Impact of the Banking Sector in Colombia, 1995 – 2002

This document studies the impact of the banking sector on social variables in Colombia, and tries to identify how the difference in banking institutions’ development at the municipal levels influences economic and social prosperity of low income households and firms. One part of the literature emphasizes the role of the financial system in promoting this type of agents’ economic performance as long as it attracts them to the use of financial intermediation, making available to them the use of financial services and technologies, both in deposits and credit. Another trend in the literature studies specific characteristics of liquidity constrained agents. This study empirically identifies how bancarization influences poverty and investment on education, in the case of families; and economic performance and the number of firms, in the municipal level in Colombia for the period 1995-2002. When studying these effects we control for local variables such as public spending in investment, homicide rate and guerrilla conflict. The period of study was characterized by the end of an economic boom and recession, which influences our econometric results. This study shows that banking developments affect households’ education decisions and firms’ performance at the municipal level; it was also found that non performing loans are associated with the decrease in the number of firms, but a relationship between loans and the creation of firms was not present.